Oserian Flowers

Responsibility

Our founder Hans Zwager had a vision of farming in harmony with wildlife, our community and our people. Working with our environment, and not against it, is as important today as it ever was.

Here’s how we’ve been growing fairly since 1982

We’re a Fairtrade farm, which means we make sure our employees have good working conditions and opportunities. Further afield we’ve funded a number of social projects – like the drilling of boreholes away from Lake Naivasha, so nearby communities can access water more easily.

If you're in Europe and order a bouquet from us, you may find a bracelet made by local Maasai and Kikuyu women attached to it. The money from the sale of each bracelet – altogether about two million shillings every year – goes back to these women. More often than not, they use the money to educate their daughters who haven't had the opportunity to go to school.

We’re proud to be champions of nature

We’ve joined the United Nation’s Climate Neutral Network and we’ve invested in clean, renewable power throughout our estate – from harnessing geothermal energy to relying on our very own timber forest.

By going back to nature, you can see she’s already come up with solutions to our problems. Our dorper sheep do a wonderful job of cutting our grass (and the meat and wool the sheep produce also benefits our communities).

We also use an integrated pest management system (IPM) to deal with problems like red spider mites, which harm our growing flowers. We release another predatory mite, Phytoseiulus, which gets rid of the red spider mites but leaves our crops untouched.

Water is the stuff of life

We grow 80% of our flowers hydroponically. Instead of soil, we grow them in a water and mineral solution, so we can get their nutrition just right. What’s more, it helps us recycle fertilizer and reuse vast quantities of water – practices the Water Resource Management Authority (WRMA) have commended.

We’ve also collaborated with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to improve water quality and the ecosystem of Lake Naivasha. WWF have also helped us to promote our 18,000-acre wildlife sanctuary, which is home to buffalo, zebras, giraffes, antelopes, gazelles, warthogs and leopards.